I can't tell how much of it is random people projecting their cynicism onto the business world, or if it's people who have been part of bribery/kickback schemes themselves trying to normalize the behavior online.
Either way, cases like this should make it clear that the behavior is not a good idea.
Every vendor has marketing budget and a decent portion of it goes to keeping their point people at clients happy. You can call it kick back or whatever, it’s a matter of semantics.
So yes it is normal. And no it’s neither cynical and nor have I been involved in. But I’ve seen it happen around me. So I know it’s a routine thing.
Flying people to an AWS conference seems entirely different than funneling money into a single person's bank account.
Yes, I know these conferences have a party-like atmosphere, but it's not done surreptitiously and it's not siphoning money out of the deal into someone's pockets.
The answer is probably both, and any attempt to litigate it will probably be abused and lead to even more issues.
It's an open conference offered by the largest player in the space vs. a shady deal between a supplier and ONE person of another company, without its employers consent, on top of that.
Did you know that pharma sales reps take out doctors to play golf all expenses paid, plus fancy restaurant lunch in the end?
Is that different?
How about a lobbyist donating money to a political party?
Is that different?
Google the law of reciprocity. It’s human nature.
"Let us take you on a $2000 vacation" vs. "Let us take you on a $700,000 vacation." One is objectively ridiculous - this is the difference.
A marketing scheme intended to attract new customers is well within what's morally accepted. Also, it's not like every guy that goes to AWS re:Invent comes back with a brand new luxury car. What they get is just some good food and drinks, while they're there, and that's just providing good hospitality for your guests. It also does not happen behind closed doors, and most of the people that go are already existing customers.
vs.
Corrupt company approaches corrupt employee off the record to offer cash in exchange of contracts that would not get assigned to them otherwise (because if they were, they wouldn't resort to this).
Taking personal kickbacks from vendors can be legal, so long as it's reported to your employer (and the IRS). What's not legal is hiding it from your employer because they have policies against it, and every (large) employer does.
The sole owners of large private companies can and do occasionally get personal kickbacks for their business. It rarely makes sense for them, because as owners of large private corporations they have better way of extracting cash from those companies (like literally paying themselves a salary or bonus). Totally legal, though.
In Vegas...
Is this satire? What is going on in this thread?
> Accepting a free trip to a drug-company-sponsored conference guided doctors to write more prescriptions of the company’s drugs, a spike of 80 to 190 percent
https://www.drugwatch.com/news/2012/01/18/pharmaceutical-com...
America is generally good about limiting things to legal graft. I can't offer an elected official money in exchange for a vote, but I can donate millions to entities controlled by the elected officials that are my "friends" and make sure they know about it.
Companies pick up at least some expenses for customers, partners, journalists, analysts, etc. to attend business events all the time. And everyone involved is very clear about the difference between that and handing them a stack of bills under the table.
(And speaking for myself, I can think of a lot of places that I'd rather be than Las Vegas for re:Invent.)
Kail received money and stock directly, not as part of a business or sales exchange. Being flown to a conference where you'll be told the merits of your potential purchase is obviously very different.
Even if Kail had innocently owned stock in a company being evaluated it likely would have been a conflict of interest and they should have stepped away from the evaluation. This happens all the time. As a CEO I can tell you I've had people stop a call partway through because they realize they're conflicted out of the discussion and I'll have to talk to a neutral party.
This guy was soliciting cash and stocks! A crummy sponsored trip to a conference would have been arranged through the employer, and is not the same thing.
At none of them was there any kind quid pro quo even hinted at. My employer knew about and approved all trips beforehand.
This is way different than what happened here. Direct payments to an employee for award of work without knowledge of their employer.
The actions in question occurred almost 10 years ago, how many people lost commissions and bonuses and promotions and jobs and relationships by trying to play fair?
acknowledging this isn’t being an apologist for it or condoning it
even the DOJ indictment only acknowledges Netflix shareholders being deprived of tiny tiny amounts of profits, not everyone at all the other companies in the wake over the last decade, which is kind of a slap in the face and like a joke that public servants actually bothered, using that rationale.
so with that reality the incentive is still there to kickback and relax
What exactly is the definition of wage theft? Do you have a source? I would love to have it
[0] https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-fo...
Ever connected to an open wifi network without directly confirming with the owner you're allowed? Crime.
Ever held your phone while driving? Crime. Happen to also be headed downhill and hit 1mph over the limit? Double crime!
Ever walked across your street outside of clearly marked crossings? Crime.
Ever sung happy birthday in public? Crime.
Ever played a poker game for small stakes at home? Crime.
Ever had a pet and not registered them with your county? Crime.
Ever peed outside? Crime.
Ever bought something online and not reported it for taxes? Crime.
Ever sat on the sidewalk? Crime.
The list goes on and on.
you don't need to report things you buy online on your taxes
In at least some states (e.g. Massachusetts) you are indeed supposed to report out of state purchases brought into the state whether or not the company selling to you collected the state sales tax or not. (Larger companies shipping to you now have to collect.)
Only after 2016. Before that you would have been on the hook for ~$700 per performance to warner media group.
Admittedly, in most "Private" settings, you'd be fine. The most common place to get flagged was in a restaurant where the waiters sing to you.
> you don't need to report things you buy online on your taxes
Ooof, I got some bad news for you, buddy. You ABSOLUTELY DO need to report any online purchase that does not charge you sales tax at time of payment. Most retailers will now do this (primarily because Amazon abused the shit out of this to give customers an additional ~10% off, and the IRS started handing out fines) but for things like: Craigslist, Ebay, Alibaba, etc - You better be reporting it, you little criminal you.
Which it is right now, so "happy birthday" is public domain.
> You ABSOLUTELY DO need to report any online purchase that does not charge you sales tax
The original post didn't say "that do not charge tax." Yes you must pay taxes where applicable, like all purchases.
The original post also didn't specify that you picked an online vendor that's calculating this tax for you... And in some places, you're still supposed to be reporting it! Fun times!
From [1]: Generally, if sales tax would apply when you buy physical merchandise in California, use tax applies when you make a similar purchase without tax from a business located outside the state. For these purchases, the buyer is required to pay use tax separately.
I agree that we massively overcriminalize things. But apologizing for a crook this way is just silly.
(Not to mention you're factually incorrect on some of this, universalizing the rest when it isn't universal, and generally being very hyperbolic.)
You'll notice I make no comment about the kickbacks here.
And yes - the whole POINT is that none of these are all that intuitive, and they vary by region. So the odds are very good that you're violating some city/town/state ordinance fairly often, but the lack of enforcement means you never consider it.
When unchecked, corruption becomes a local maximum. The corporate version of “plata o plumbo” (silver or lead, the choice Pablo Escobar gave government officials in Columbia) is an unspoken rule at a lot of “cash cow” companies or mature industries; they won’t trust you unless they can hold something like this over your head. Step out of line and they prosecute you, or if you don’t play ball your metrics will look like shit and you’ll get fired for poor performance.
My guess is that this guy just made some powerful enemies.
I think this is like the exact list in a recent video of his. Great channel by the way if people are unfamiliar
I'm assuming this is regarding Happy Birthday being copyrighted? If so, you should know that that copyright was declared invalid, and Happy Birthday is now public domain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You#Copyrigh...
Also, copyright infringement is only a crime if it is done for financial gain. Otherwise, it's a civil issue. You won't get jailed for pirating a movie. You CAN get jailed for SELLING pirated copies of a movie.
> Ever played a poker game for small stakes at home? Crime.
I heard this isn't true unless the host takes a rake, though this might depend on the state.
So, working as intended?
I get what your meaning but this phrasing cracked me up.
It should not be a criminal charge.
And the civil charge likely needs to be levied elsewhere, and let the individual perpetrator be embroiled in private litigation with the employer and associated companies.
I see the same absurdity in the FCPA. Americans are sent into to foreign and already corrupt markets to land business, but if they do anything competitive in that corrupt market, then they … have to pay a kickback to the United States too as punishment for paying kickbacks?
This was pay to play and the play was not delivered. Hence the blowback from upset "victims" coming after their money.
Kickbacks are almost never posecuted because both sidea get what they want.
Its part of the reason gov projects are almost always over budget and behind schedule. The only way to prevent corruption is to make the corruption more expensive than just paying upfront. However by putting these endless bureaucracies in place it also raises the total cost of the project.
Same played out with the college entrance scandal. "Bribery is great and we love it a bunch—unless you do it wrong because you're not rich enough to do it right, then it's a big ol' no-no" is the message a great many received from that one.
I think the extreme version of this is me taking something that is routine or normal for me individually and assuming all other humans must do it. Or taking something that my spouse, boss, or parent did and assume all spouses, bosses, or parents must do it. Not necessarily.
Some times (very rarely a person got caught, no criminal charges) some timed it was known and nobody cared.
Some of my friend chose not to become managers because they did not want to get involved in the scheme.
There are tons of stories of big pharma sending doctors to lavish resorts in the guise of a "conference". Ever heard of payola? The music business has been based on bribes. Why would you think of the film business being different? Hell, the states are involved just as much with tax incentives to entice productions to use their state/cities as location for that production.
You're being quite cynical trying to wrap any person with knowledge of these payout schemes as being involved/complicit.
Yes, I know my chem101 teacher wasn't Heisenberg. Yes, I understand how TV is fiction. However, are you really so thick to not realize that fiction is based on reality. Fiction isn't written in a vaccum, and the most interesting plots are typically based on some real situation the author has experienced, seen/heard, etc. Yes, it is dramatized to make the really boring parts interesting so people tune in, but come on. If you don't think a Don Draper/Walter White type existed as a single person or an amalgamation of multiple people then you just have your head in the sand.
Using modern TV/Film/media in examples isn't a cluelessness on the speaker's part. It's used as something much more relatable than an esoteric story that you might or might not be able to provide a link to.
I think most people don't understand the difference between an agreed to agency fee/reseller margin deal, a direct incentive program, and someone just taking money, on the side. Direct Incentives (also call spiffs) are where a supplier pays a bonus directly to the person who sold the deal. These are always agreed to between the companies and reported. Without permission of the employer, they could be very illegal or a major violation of your employment contract.
Or people who actually know about those things, having worked in/with/studied the various industries, without having "been part of bribery/kickback schemes themselves", and have seen them to be fairly widespread - that's a missing third option.
I added this, because the above comment is still that of the proverbial starry-eyed kid arriving with the bus to L.A. from Nebraska, and paints a false dichotomy that ends up with the same conclusion ("this can't possibly be widespread"):
(a) it's either cynical people (so this isn't widespread, it's just their cynicism that thinks so)
(b) or it's crooks looking to normalize their behavior (so this isn't widespread, it's just isolated "bad-apple" cases justyfing themselves)
Even merely studying different industries, you'll find such scandals (and worse) in some of the biggest companies on Earth, with upper management knowledge and encourangement, collaboration with local governments, cover-up and diplomatic protection from the company's own government, and so on.
Just an example, from one of the biggest companies in the world, with tons of different executives and branches involved, and with different corruption cases all around the world:
https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2011/2011-263.htm
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-lt-latam-siemens-b...
https://www.reuters.com/article/norway-siemens-idUSL13418322...
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/worldbusiness/21...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Greek_bribery_scandal
How about IBM:
https://medium.com/worm-capital/the-ibm-hall-of-shame-a-semi...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-drops-multi-country-bribery...
https://fortune.com/2017/07/27/ibm-poland-investigation/
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-12793255
Microsoft?
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-pay-25m-to-doj-an...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-settlement-idUS...
GE and more:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/fbi-targets-johnson-johnson-...
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/whistleb...
https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/regulations/article...
A general study focusing on past:
"As the 2000s decade progressed, a different breed of corporate scandals began to surface. For example, companies such as ABB Limited, Daimler Chrysler, El Paso Corporation, General Electric, Halliburton, Lee Dynamics, Lucent Technologies, and Siemens AG were found guilty of violating U.S. law and consequently, also rattled shareholders’ trust (Cascini & DelFavero, 2008, p.27). The named businesses were found guilty of committing bribery (...)"
https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...
And we haven't even got into weapons, aviation, construction, and medicine industry bribes (industries which are to bribes what Xerox PARC was for UI innovations!)
I think the problem lands somewhere between “widespread corruption” and “never.”
Salespeople can hit their quotas without kickbacks.
What I do see from time to time is this happening “fully disclosed”’at the very senior level. A CEO of a major database company convinces the board to buy a firm that he has an interest in. A CEO “allows” a company to rent out his property for corporate housing. These are fully disclosed, and therefore considered acceptable.
Salesforce or GitHub selling seats to some random company sure don't.
Large software vendors like Microsoft, Siemens (their software dept), IBM, and more, have routinely bribed all around the world to win government contracts.
It may seem nitpicky and yet I think the context and statistics matter—without it, I think we can fall into very binary discussions of people being corrupt or clean, bad or good.
Exactly. It's easy to search the internet internet for 10+ news stories about just about any bad behavior over the past decade, but that doesn't make it the norm.
Is this on HN? Because I rarely sees it. Most people working in Tech and specifically software development are so abstracted from these type of things they think they are extremely rare.
It is still a common thing though. At least it happens much more often than most people thought. And it is not cynicism but personal experience.
Try talking to a retired government worker for juicy stories some time (there are three generations of tech workers in my family, and all of us have done government work or contracting since the 1960s).
This is why government workers and contractors have to take so much anti-corruption training (I’ve never been subject to this in any purely private sector jobs).
This was hundreds of thousands. Those are billions.
What's the difference? The person who got caught was a small fry and couldn't pull the strings.
This is the sort of cynical thing people say because other people say it. Spiro Agnew did it, sure. That was a while ago. What are your other examples? Since virtually every member does this, you should have hundreds. And remember you need a roughly balanced count of Republicans and Democrats. Obama was in office for 8 years. That should be quite a pile.
Pure cynicism is an argument against rules and accountability generally.
It "seems off" because that obviously isn't what happened.
> Jury Earlier Returned 28 Guilty Verdicts Convicting Michael Kail of Fraud and Money Laundering for Pay-To-Play Payments from Tech Startups Seeking Netflix Contracts
These are crimes, not mere violations of corporate policy.
So the person took bribes and hurt other tech vendors and the corporation. Sure. But suppose you hurt the organization and partners by being incompetent at your work. Or having bad judgement, or being lazy, or a million other things. Would it be okay to send those people to prison?
"Pay-to-Play" isn't illegal. I don't even know what it is. Coke pays to have their beverage in AMC theaters. Is that pay to play? Is Pepsi more worthy of that slot? "Money Laundering" is incredibly broad and can be applied to a lot of things.
It’s always a game of cat and mouse. Legalizing small time bribery where it can be done out in the open would probably be far more effective then advocating for things like increased workplace surveillance.
Thinking commerce can happen without corruption or kickbacks is just naive.
https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-e...